[4000+ DA – 0 AT]

Today we have kings, gods, and nations. We are led by those like us. We live, and we die, according to the whims of mortals.

All of these things we owe to the Torpor.

The Dragon Age

Before the Torpor, all of the North was ruled by monsters born from nightmares. Winged beasts with skin so thick it would turn any blade, magic so strong it could stop any spell, and breath burning hot enough to melt pure steel. Dragons were our kings, our gods, and our nations. All mortals existed to serve them, and every breath drawn was at a dragon’s mercy.

They taught us language, science, identity. As any might, we became wholly defined by our service, unaware of life any other way. We fought for them, worshiped them, sacrificed ourselves to them, even bred with them, and we believed it was enough; but of course, they cared little. The few Draconic histories we have recovered from before the Torpor have made reference to us only rarely, and they used few words for us: the pieces, the pawns. The servants. The slaves. We never were—nor are—people to them. We were a game.

The Torpor

We could not fight the Dragons: they lived forever. All rebellions we know of during the Dragon Age were crushed without success. Dragons could not be killed; no weapon could harm them, and age could not touch them. Many have pondered the invincibility and immortality of the Dragons, and the implications are grim.

In the end, it was not war or violence that defeated the Dragons.

We do not know when it began, when the first of them fell to the Torpor, but perhaps twelve hundred years ago the Dragons began to turn their vast armies of slaves to a task other than war: we were ordered to build. All across the North, monuments of unprecedented size and beauty began to rise. Sometimes they were built atop hills or mountains, but most often they built them underground, digging tunnels and caverns deep into the earth. When the monuments were finished, the Dragon would crawl inside into the innermost chamber, at the heart of their own glory, and they would drift to sleep. The Dragons called it the Torpor, and all peoples, Dragons and mortals alike, spoke of it with dread and longing in equal measure.

For years, we did not understand. We continued to serve their wishes, even in their absence. We fought and died in wars we perceived would edify our silent masters, we sacrificed to bring them back to us, we created webs of gods and rituals to appease them. All of it failed. It was then that we realized that we had not built monuments to the Dragons, we had built their tombs. All the North was covered with the graves of tyrants: the Dragon Barrows.

It would be a lie to say that the Dragons died, though. Even to this day, there are stories of those who venture into a Barrow. The survivors say that the Dragon within will awaken just long enough to consume the others, and return to rest. But the Dragons cannot be coaxed from their sleep for long (with one exception, but that is another story). No, the Dragons, while they might be alive, are done with us. They have fed, they have fucked, they have fought, and they are done.

For all of humanity, all the races of the North, year zero marks the day we greeted the dawn of free will.